Newcastle, Cesc, Udinese and more

Apologies for my lack of posts recently – your ‘make-up present’ is a post split into four; basically the four things I would have written about in each post that never came… (if that makes sense)

Newcastle

Despite our solidity at the back, it was a very worrying performance. Once again we struggled going forward, failing to create any real opportunities and it didn’t seem like we would if the game went on for another 90 minutes. In that respect we desperately missed Fabregas, and to a degree, Nasri.

The biggest problem seemed to be the lack of a link between midfield and attack. Without Jack that was emphasised even more. I thought Rosicky actually had a decent game, he was trying to make things happen and wasn’t getting much help. Ramsey didn’t have the best of games, sort of struggling to impose himself on the match, while Robin seemed to lack any decent support.

I think usually that without Fabregas we need creativity to come from the wings, and while Arshavin did fashion one chance for van Persie, he was pretty ineffective. Gervinho on the other hand was constantly finding himself in good positions, only failing to deliver the right final ball. Reports from France did say that his decision making needed a little work, and from what we saw on Saturday that does seem evident.

The problem was though, when Gervinho did deliver a ball into the box, or when anyone else did for that matter, there was only really van Persie in there, and when you have one striker amongst five or six opposition players, you’ve got little chance of scoring. What we needed was probably a few energetic runs from midfield from Ramsey, arriving late in the box giving Gervinho another option.

Cesc

Well, it’s the end of an era. Once again, our best player has left for supposedly greener pastures, although again I can’t think he’ll be loved as much as he was here. There have been countless tributes to Cesc – surely none better than this from Sian, but I’m going to avoid that kind of sentimental piece. I’m sure everyone knows that Cesc’s my favourite ever player, but I’d rather not dwell on the past and instead focus on the future.

I’m still clinging onto the hope of seeing Juan Mata arrive at the Emirates as a replacement for either Cesc or Nasri – more on him later – especially seeing as Valencia have just tied up the signing of Sergio Canales, a similar type of player to Mata. It all makes sense to me; the transfer merry-go-round would be complete and I think everyone would be relatively pleased.

Of course we do have Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere, but I can’t see the two of them being ready to carry the entire creative burden at the club. With Walcott and Gervinho looking to be our first choice wing pairing, we won’t have much creativity from the wings – both will look to get in behind the defence, so we’ll need our two most advanced central midfielders to be creating most if not all of their opportunities.

We may well see a change in the dynamics of our game, perhaps focussing less on possession and more on direct attacks now that Cesc is gone. I should imagine Aidan will have something to add to what I say in his latest column on Friday, but on every other day you’re stuck with my primitive tactical mind. Deal with it.

Udinese

It was important to get a win, and that’s what we got – although people still managed to find reason to complain. I’d rather focus on the positives: we kept a clean sheet, we looked relatively safe at the back despite some scares – Vermaelen and Koscielny looks a terrific partnership – Theo made some intelligent runs and made a good overall contribution and we did really well to carve Udinese open for our goal.

It was a shame we couldn’t build on it, although we came close once or twice; Handanovic’s stunning save from Walcott’s effort springs to mind. However, it’s important that we won and managed not to concede. The crowd got behind the team for the most part, and the team responded at times. There didn’t seem to be much negativity, and while at the same time positivity was sometimes hard to come by, at least the fans tried being patient with the players instead of bemoaning every missed pass.

Everything else

Nasri is apparently set for a medical with Manchester City in less than ten minutes. My source? Some bloke on Twitter. I actually hope he’s right. Nasri’s stalled for too long and I’d rather have players who want to play for Arsenal.

I really think Nasri has taken the fans for granted. If he thought we were going to support him as he basically damaged the club over the summer with his indecision and apparent lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of staying, he was wrong. It makes you wonder why players are so ready to throw away the love they get from supporters.

Robin van Persie is our new captain, and it’s good to have a skipper so clearly 100% committed to the Arsenal cause. I’m sure he won’t tolerate any slacking or lack of commitment either. Thomas Vermaelen will ‘assist’ him, obviously meaning that he’ll be vice captain (why didn’t you just say that Arsene).

It’s a decent leadership partnership, but I’d imagine Vermaelen will still act as if he’s captain, just not taking on all of the official duties of skipper. Instead of having van Persie clearly ahead of the hierarchy (not always a wise idea) I reckon Vermaelen will be right next to him on any posters.

As for signings – the moment you’ve all been waiting for – nothing’s reallly happening. There have been murmurs that we’re going in for Mauro Zarate, Lazio’s ex-Birmingham forward, who can change a game, but I can’t see it. Mainly because his agent’s doing all the talking and it’s not the first time. L’equipe claim we had a loan deal for Marseille’s Lucho Gonzalez, formerly of Porto, rejected out-right, because they wouldn’t be able to find a replacement.

That’s about it for today, hopefully we’ll have some good news to be talking about sooner rather than later.

2 responses to “Newcastle, Cesc, Udinese and more”

Good piece Sam, as per usual. Interesting about Ramsey looking quiet, I think Arsenal Report did a piece on it. They both like to play the ‘Cesc’ role, i.e. the advanced playmaker. Obviously Rosicky suits it better because he doesn’t have the legs for the ‘Wilshere’ or box-to-box role, so Ramsey gets stuck with that one, as such he does seem a little quieter than usual. They did look more fluid in the Udinese game, probably from more time together in training.

Cheers Sav (that’s your nickname, deal with it). I haven’t been able to read AR lately on our house computer’s primitive Internet Explorer 6 but I’m sure it was a really interesting post. Agree with your sentiments about the midfielders, hopefully they’ll continue to gel as time goes by.